step 1 of 3
install the app
open the dmg and drag feather drive to applications. a small feather lands in your menu bar.
3-day free trial · macOS 26+
your cloud, as an infinite mac disk.
open any video from your google drive or dropbox with feather drive and it plays within a second. only the part you're watching is streamed, so even a 92 GB file opens on a mac with 10 GB free.
“Damn, @sumitp01’s FeatherDrive is 🔥 I can access my cloud files directly on my Mac without downloading them. Pretty fast, though you’ll need premium and a good internet connection!”
Nikhil@Nikhil33064989“Finally a practical use for all that Google Drive storage 🙏🫶✨”
Manish Prajapati@manishpjt_“> installed > uploaded a sample of video and tested > really works”
MightyPegasas@MightyPegasas
Nikhil@Nikhil33064989“Finally a practical use for all that Google Drive storage 🙏🫶✨”Manish Prajapati@manishpjt_“> installed > uploaded a sample of video and tested > really works”MightyPegasas@MightyPegasas“I already pay for Google Drive, so paying for another service just to stream my own files always felt a bit pointless. Came across Feather Drive recently. The idea of using storage you already have makes a lot of sense. featherdrive.app”
monish@monishb21“Really nice app, and such a useful tool to have right now”
Tirth Bal@tirth_bal“Damn my mac never has storage, this is just the tool I needed”
_SubhashKashyap@_subhashkashyap
monish@monishb21“Really nice app, and such a useful tool to have right now”Tirth Bal@tirth_bal“Damn my mac never has storage, this is just the tool I needed”_SubhashKashyap@_subhashkashyap“Basically using Google Drive as an extension of my Mac storage with featherdrive. Move files off the SSD and access them whenever I need them. Pretty useful for a MacBook with limited storage. featherdrive.app”
Akshat Surolia@AkshatSurolia“Got storage problem with your mac? Try featherdrive.app to keep your data on your gDrive while accessing it like it resides in your disc. Tried it works seamlessly.”
Jai Kushwaha@kushwahajai74“Just tried Feather Drive, and it genuinely does what it says: mounts Google Drive as a local drive on your computer. Honestly, why hasn’t Google built this natively yet? 😭 Such a simple idea, but incredibly useful. Great work, @sumitp01 👏 featherdrive.app”
Ayush Bansal@Ayush_095
Akshat Surolia@AkshatSurolia“Got storage problem with your mac? Try featherdrive.app to keep your data on your gDrive while accessing it like it resides in your disc. Tried it works seamlessly.”Jai Kushwaha@kushwahajai74“Just tried Feather Drive, and it genuinely does what it says: mounts Google Drive as a local drive on your computer. Honestly, why hasn’t Google built this natively yet? 😭 Such a simple idea, but incredibly useful. Great work, @sumitp01 👏 featherdrive.app”Ayush Bansal@Ayush_095see it in finder
click the big file. it weighs nothing.
6 items, 4.2 MB on this mac, 718 GB in your cloud
kedarnath-trek-4k.mov92.6 GB
- kind
- QuickTime movie
- size
- 92,614,287,360 bytes
- on disk
- Zero bytes on disk
- where
- feather drive ▸ films
it lives in your google drive or dropbox. double-click and it streams.
01:12:08:14
v2
v1
a1
92.6 GB clip, zero bytes on disk, scrubbing straight from the cloud
12,408 raw files, zero bytes on disk, previews load in a blink
kick
bass
keys
vox
pads
31.4 GB of stems opened in place, nothing copied to your mac
lecture-07-thermo.mp4 · 2.1 GB
week 7: entropyexam stuff
a whole semester of recordings, zero bytes on a 256 GB mac
why it feels differentbig files, zero weight.
big files, zero weight.
on a mac that stays light.
space a 92 gb film takes on your mac0 bytes
target time from click to first frame< 1.5 s
encrypted segments, fetched one by one4 MiB
gcm encryption, keys in your keychainAES-256
opens in the apps you already use
- Final Cut Pro
- DaVinci Resolve
- CapCut
- Premiere Pro
- Logic Pro
- Lightroom
- VLC
- IINA
step 2 of 3
sign in with google
one button. by default feather drive only sees the files it puts in your drive, never the rest of it.
step 3 of 3
drag files in
feather drive opens in finder, with a folder for your cloud. drop your biggest folders there and free the space.
your files never move. finder just sees them.
your files stay in your cloud
they live in your own google drive or dropbox, in a folder called feather drive. nothing goes through our servers, and we never see them.
finder shows them like a disk
folders, names and sizes appear in finder’s sidebar. drag in, rename, delete: the way you always do.
only what you open arrives
play a film and just the part you’re watching comes down, then it’s cleared. your mac stays as light as before.
works with
- google drive
- dropbox
- more coming
a cloud drive that feels local.
it behaves like a disk you already know, with a few extras living in your menu bar.
- 01
double-click, it streams
every app, quicktime included, reads only the parts it plays, so a big clip starts in about a second.
- 02
your disk stays empty
move a folder in and get the space back straight away.
- 03
drop files on the feather
drag anything onto the menu-bar icon and it uploads to your drive.
- 04
find anything with ⌃⌥F
search your whole drive from any app, then open it, reveal it in finder or copy a link.
- 05
share with a link
pick a file in ⌃⌥F and press ⌘⇧C. it opens in any browser, the key stays in the link.
- 06
uploads that pick up again
close the lid halfway through. it carries on from the last byte.
- 07
locked before it leaves
with encryption on, your cloud only ever stores scrambled bytes.
- 08
edit straight from the drive
resolve, final cut and logic read from feather drive like any other disk.
from people using it.
Damn, @sumitp01’s FeatherDrive is 🔥 I can access my cloud files directly on my Mac without downloading them. Pretty fast, though you’ll need premium and a good internet connection!
I already pay for Google Drive, so paying for another service just to stream my own files always felt a bit pointless. Came across Feather Drive recently. The idea of using storage you already have makes a lot of sense. featherdrive.app
Basically using Google Drive as an extension of my Mac storage with featherdrive. Move files off the SSD and access them whenever I need them. Pretty useful for a MacBook with limited storage. featherdrive.app
Finally a practical use for all that Google Drive storage 🙏🫶✨
Really nice app, and such a useful tool to have right now
Got storage problem with your mac? Try featherdrive.app to keep your data on your gDrive while accessing it like it resides in your disc. Tried it works seamlessly.
> installed > uploaded a sample of video and tested > really works
Damn my mac never has storage, this is just the tool I needed
Just tried Feather Drive, and it genuinely does what it says: mounts Google Drive as a local drive on your computer. Honestly, why hasn’t Google built this natively yet? 😭 Such a simple idea, but incredibly useful. Great work, @sumitp01 👏 featherdrive.app
same file. one downloads, one plays.
we opened the same 1.22 GB video on one mac, from google drive for desktop and from feather drive. google drive downloaded the whole file first and opened it after 1 min 44 s. feather drive played it in 1.7 s, and the file still takes zero bytes on disk.
the same drive, minus the copies.
| feature | feather drive | other available solutions | google drive for desktop | icloud drive | dropbox |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| opens big files without downloading them first | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | |
| native finder location | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| end-to-end encryption | optional | ✕ | opt-in (advanced data protection) | business plans | |
| connect the google drive or dropbox storage you already have | both | ✕ | google only | ✕ | dropbox only |
| price | $19.99 (₹1,299) lifetime or $4.99 (₹299) for a month, uses your google or dropbox storage | usually a monthly fee for their own storage | free, uses your google storage | paid beyond 5 gb | paid beyond 2 gb |
based on each app’s default behaviour on macOS and its own website as of october 2026. pricing is for extra storage beyond the free tier.
my mac has a 256 gb drive and i edit video. for a year i juggled external disks and deleted footage i wanted to keep.
i already paid google for two terabytes i barely touched. i just wanted that space to show up in finder and behave like a disk, without copying everything back down. so i built it, priced it once, and kept your files in your own drive.
things people ask first.
how can a 92 gb file open instantly?
macOS asks feather drive for specific byte ranges of a file as an app reads it. feather drive fetches just those ranges from google drive or dropbox, plus a little ahead, and hands them over. a video player needs the first few megabytes to start, not the whole file. those pieces pass through a small capped cache and are cleared again, so get info keeps saying zero bytes on disk.
how do i play a video without downloading it?
just double-click it in finder, or find it with ⌃⌥F and press return. every app, quicktime included, reads only the parts it plays, so a big clip starts in about a second and nothing is saved to your mac.
how do i switch it on?
the first time, macOS asks you to allow feather drive’s file system extension, and the app points you to the right switch: system settings › general › login items & extensions. under extensions, choose by category, click ⓘ next to file system extensions and switch on feather drive. you only do this once.
can it see my other files?
no. on google drive, feather drive asks for the drive.file permission, which only covers files the app creates or that you open with it. on dropbox it is an app-folder app: it only sees apps › feather drive. your existing docs, photos and folders stay out of reach either way.
will google or dropbox block my account for using it?
no. feather drive connects through google’s and dropbox’s official apis, the same way other apps you’ve approved do, and by default it only sees the files it creates. you can see or remove its access any time (google, dropbox). the only limits are their own: google allows 750 gb of uploads a day (details), and dropbox pauses a shared link with very heavy traffic for 24 hours (details). both reset on their own and don’t affect your account. what you store still has to follow their rules (google, dropbox).
can i use google drive and dropbox together?
yes. connect one or both. each shows up as its own folder inside feather drive in finder, and when you drop files on the menu bar icon you pick which one, with the last one you used ready as the default.
what happens if i lose my recovery key?
if encryption is on and you lose both your passphrase and your 24-word recovery key, nobody can decrypt your files: not google, not dropbox, not us. that is the point of end-to-end encryption, and also why the app makes you save the recovery key before you continue. encryption is optional; unencrypted files can always be opened straight from your cloud.
does it work offline?
your files live in your cloud, not on your mac, so opening them needs a connection. new files you add while offline wait in a queue and upload when you reconnect.
what do i need to run it?
a mac with macOS 26 tahoe or later and a google or dropbox account. feather drive streams through the file system extensions apple added in macOS 26, so it can’t run on earlier versions; the update is free on every mac that supports it. how much you can store depends on your plan there: google gives 15 gb free and dropbox 2 gb, with more on a paid plan.
is it really free?
you get a free 3-day trial with everything unlocked. after that you choose: a lifetime license ($19.99, or ₹1,299 in India) for up to 3 macs with free updates for every 1.x version, or 1 month ($4.99, or ₹299 in India) for 1 mac, paid once with no autopay. your files stay in your own google drive or dropbox either way, so there is no storage bill from us.
pricing
feather drive, your way.
try it free for 3 days. if it earns its place in your menu bar, pay once and keep it for good, or pay for just a month.
download free3-day free trial · every feature · no card needed
∞ lifetime licenselaunch price , regular price
one-time
pay once. no subscription, no monthly fees.
- yours for good
- unlimited files
- up to 3 macs
- free 1.x updates
- end-to-end encryption
thank you
your license key:
- download and open feather drive
- settings → license
- paste the key
we also emailed it to you. works on up to 3 macs.
for 30 days
pay once. no autopay, nothing renews.
- everything, for 30 days
- unlimited files
- 1 mac
- every update included
- no autopay, nothing renews
thank you
your license key:
- download and open feather drive
- settings → license
- paste the key
we also emailed it to you. works on 1 mac for 30 days.
- secure checkout by razorpay
- lifetime: one payment, ever
- 1 month: no autopay
- free 1.x updates
3-day free trial · pay once · macOS 26+
your mac stays light. your files stay close.
install it, sign in with google, drag your biggest folder in. it takes about a minute.